On our arrival, the chief was sitting in the smooth shady place, called Boalo, where all public business is transacted, with about two hundred men and boys around him.We paid our guides with due ostentation.Masiko, the tallest of our party, measured off the fathom of cloth agreed upon, and made it appear as long as possible, by facing round to the crowd, and cutting a few inches beyond what his outstretched arms could reach, to show that there was no deception.This was by way of advertisement.The people are mightily gratified at having a tall fellow to measure the cloth for them.It pleases them even better than cutting it by a tape-line--though very few men of six feet high can measure off their own length with their outstretched arms.Here, where Arab traders have been, the cubit called mokono, or elbow, begins to take the place of the fathom in use further south.The measure is taken from the point of the bent elbow to the end of the middle finger.
We found, on visiting Muazi on the following day, that he was as frank and straightforward as could reasonably be expected.He did not wish us to go to the N.N.W., because he carries on a considerable trade in ivory there.We were anxious to get off the slave route, to people not visited before by traders; but Muazi naturally feared, that if we went to what is said to be a well-watered country, abounding in elephants, we might relieve him of the ivory which he now obtains at a cheap rate, and sells to the slave-traders as they pass Kasungu to the east; but at last he consented, warning us that "great difficulty would be experienced in obtaining food--a district had been depopulated by slave wars--and a night or two must be spent in it; but he would give us good guides, who would go three days with us, before turning, and then further progress must depend on ourselves."Some of our men having been ill ever since we mounted this highland plain, we remained two days with Muazi.
A herd of fine cattle showed that no tsetse existed in the district.
They had the Indian hump, and were very fat, and very tame.The boys rode on both cows and bulls without fear, and the animals were so fat and lazy, that the old ones only made a feeble attempt to kick their young tormentors.Muazi never milks the cows; he complained that, but for the Mazitu having formerly captured some, he should now have had very many.They wander over the country at large, and certainly thrive.
After leaving Muazi's, we passed over a flat country sparsely covered with the scraggy upland trees, but brightened with many fine flowers.
The grass was short, reaching no higher than the knee, and growing in tufts with bare spaces between, though the trees were draped with many various lichens, and showed a moist climate.A high and very sharp wind blew over the flats; its piercing keenness was not caused by low temperature, for the thermometer stood at 80 degrees.
We were now on the sources of the Loangwa of the Maravi, which enters the Zambesi at Zumbo, and were struck by the great resemblance which the boggy and sedgy streams here presented to the sources of the Leeba, an affluent of the Zambesi formerly observed in Londa, and of the Kasai, which some believe to be the principal branch of the Congo or Zaire.
We had taken pains to ascertain from the travelled Babisa and Arabs as much as possible about the country in front, which, from the lessening time we had at our disposal, we feared we could scarcely reach, and had heard a good deal of a small lake called Bemba.As we proceeded west, we passed over the sources not only of the Loangwa, but of another stream, called Moitawa or Moitala, which was represented to be the main feeder of Lake Bemba.This would be of little importance, but for the fact that the considerable river Luapula, or Loapula is said to flow out of Bemba to the westward, and then to spread out into another and much larger lake, named Moero, or Moelo.Flowing still further in the same direction, the Loapula forms Lake Mofue, or Mofu, and after this it is said to pass the town of Cazembe, bend to the north, and enter Lake Tanganyika.Whither the water went after it entered the last lake, no one would venture an assertion.But that the course indicated is the true watershed of that part of the country, we believe from the unvarying opinion of native travellers.There could be no doubt that our informants had been in the country beyond Cazembe's, for they knew and described chiefs whom we afterwards met about thirty-five or forty miles west of his town.The Lualaba is said to flow into the Loapula--and when, for the sake of testing the accuracy of the travelled, it was asserted that all the water of the region round the town of Cazembe flowed into the Luambadzi, or Luambezi (Zambesi), they remarked with a smile, "He says, that the Loapula flows into the Zambesi--did you ever hear such nonsense?" or words to that effect.We were forced to admit, that according to native accounts, our previous impression of the Zambesi's draining the country about Cazembe's had been a mistake.Their geographical opinions are now only stated, without any further comment than that the itinerary given by the Arabs and others shows that the Loapula is twice crossed on the way to Cazembe's; and we may add that we have never found any difficulty from the alleged incapacity of the negro to tell which way a river flows.
The boiling-point of water showed a descent, from the edge of the plateau to our furthest point west, of 170 feet; but this can only be considered as an approximation, and no dependence could have been placed on it, had we not had the courses of the streams to confirm this rather rough mode of ascertaining altitudes.The slope, as shown by the watershed, was to the "Loangwa of the Maravi," and towards the Moitala, or south-west, west, and north-west.After we leave the feeders of Lake Nyassa, the water drains towards the centre of the continent.The course of the Kasai, a river seen during Dr.
